UK pharma companies reminded of environmental obligations

The UK's Environment Agency has reminded businesses which create hazardous waste in the pharmaceutical sector of imminent changes to the management of hazardous waste, highlighting their legal obligation to handle it safely and responsibly, and to give it only to properly licensed waste carriers or waste facilities.

The practice of codisposal of hazardous and non-hazardous wastes in the same landfill will be banned from 16 July. Furthermore, from the same date all hazardous waste requires treatment before it is landfilled. The impact of the new rules will affect not only the operators of landfill sites but also producers of hazardous wastes.

The number of landfills authorised to accept hazardous waste in England and Wales is expected to fall from more than 200 to around 10 once the new rules come into force; this loss of landfill capacity is expected to have a significant impact on the ability of business to dispose of their wastes.

The Environment Agency is urging businesses to follow a five-point plan:

• Check whether your waste is hazardous using Environment Agency guidelines at www.environment-agency.gov.uk/wm2.

• Know where your hazardous waste is going. Businesses have a legal duty of care to ensure that their hazardous waste is passed to someone who has the authority to handle such as registered waste carriers or properly authorised waste management facilities.

• Explore options to reduce the amount of hazardous waste you produce.

• Budget for rising costs for the treatment and disposal of hazardous waste. Overall, the estimated cost of managing hazardous wastes will rise from £150m to £500m per year.

• Keep up to date - recent changes have resulted in more waste becoming hazardous. For some businesses this may mean that it will become a hazardous waste producer for the first time. Clear regulatory and good practice advice can be found at www.netregs.gov.uk

'While some consequences of the legislation are unavoidable, such as increased costs, action is required by affected businesses to avoid more serious consequences, such as an increase in illegal waste management,' stressed Roy Watkinson, hazardous waste policy manager at the Environment Agency. 'The Environment Agency is working in partnership with Government to deliver some of these actions, but action is required at all levels, with business and industry playing a key role.'